Kitchen knife? cutlery generally? penknife? paper knife? plastic picnic knife? artist's palette knife? Was its use in the house? garden? Will anyone else be able to use it? Will you throw it away? give it away? keep it?

Kitchen knife? yes cutlery generally? no penknife? no paper knife? no plastic picnic knife? no artist's palette knife? noWas its use in the house? yes garden? could beWill anyone else be able to use it? yesWill you throw it away? give it away? keep it? dunno yet, but irrelevant

Does this knife have an odd handle that can only be used by certain people? Left handed people? Right handed people? People of a certain religion? Some other qualifying group? Did the knife get jabbed into a light socket and fused?

Were you going to use the knife to cut something? that is its purpose spread something? no emmmm stab something (sorry)? that's not it's purpose Would the knife be toxic after use and therefore not able to be used again? no

Was it one of those electric carving knifes? no

Martinfg

The reason you wont be able to use it again is it physical? this one emotional?

Bodo

Hullo Lynne Hullo Bodo

Is it a "specialized" knife? yes Like a tomato knife? no Bread knife? no Is there something you/your family can't eat anymore? yes Anything like that? yes

Dicygnet

Does this knife have an odd handle that can only be used by certain people? Left handed people? Right handed people? People of a certain religion? Some other qualifying group? Did the knife get jabbed into a light socket and fused? no to all

Does eating grapefruit interact badly with medication you/your family is on? Thus you can never eat it again, and some of the substances that are in grapefruit linger on the knife even after washing so you can't use the knife either?

Is the fact that grapefruit juice increases the absorption of many medications relevant? I don't think so

Is the reason for not eating grapefruit health-related? yes

Bodo

Lipitor (or other statin) relevant? yes

Dicygnet

Does eating grapefruit interact badly with medication you/your family is on? yes Thus you can never eat it again correct, and some of the substances that are in grapefruit linger on the knife even after washing so you can't use the knife either? no

Since no one in the household can eat grapefruit, there's not much use for a grapefruit knife, right? Everyone's on cholesterol-lowering meds? Even Shadow? Your daughters are out of the house now, aren't they?

Since no one in the household can eat grapefruit, there's not much use for a grapefruit knife, right? correct Everyone's on cholesterol-lowering meds? yes Even Shadow? no, but he's not partial to grapefruit with his doggie scoff Your daughters are out of the house now, aren't they? yes, but they didn't like it much either, and we don't have guests for breakfast

Tiddly tiny bit of final detail - Why can't I use the knife for something else?

I have vague memories (well, they're all vague, aren't they) of the Hardy Boys' buddy Chet using a grapefruit knife for taxidermy in one of the books...you aren't planning to take up taxidermy? um, let me think - nope

Shucks, I think I've only ever seen one - as I recall, the blade was relatively short, serrated and...curved? Is the curve the thing that renders it less than useful for non-citrus applications? yes!

********** SPOILER **************

A grapefruit knife is curved and serrated and is absolutely useless for anything else. You can't cut a straight slice of bread, you can't use it to spread butter, you can't really even use it on any other fruit because it's too big or the other fruit is too hard/has stones/too small/blahdiblah. But you can guarantee that when you select it from the carousel where all utensils sit and you can only see the handle, it'll be the wretched useless grapefruit knife that appears. But you keep it just in case you want to ......

any ideas? Apart from scooping out dead animals prior to dermytaxiing them?

They actually have a specialized knife for that? What's wrong with just cutting it in half and scooping out the fruit?

Alternate uses... Naval Oranges? If you like oranges... Opening plastic sealed containers (open lid and there's a layer of plastic hot-glued to the rim) - just cut in rather than try to peel off some of those darn things (which just tear in the wrong place anyway.)

As I have already provided a potential usage, I shall refrain, but if one were to go to this link and look at Chet's hobby in book 24 - The Short Wave Mystery - one might see that my memory is not nearly as feeble as...as...er...what was I talking about just now again?

Oh, and Lynne, if you happen to see Tosh about these are for her please:

Ok, ok, how about removing the rind from sliced melons or crushing garlic (personally I use a garlic press, but maybe I'm weird that way). Some people seem to find those to be acceptable usages for grapefruit knives. Personally I find it interesting (and perhaps slightly inefficient) that it's so specialized that one must first cut the grapefruit with a "regular" knife before wielding the grapefruit knife to harvest the innards of the thing...

So, clearly, the next time you inadvertently pull out the (otherwise useless) grapefruit knife, you need to slice up a melon* and derindificate it, or else crush up some garlic. How's that?

Dicygnet and Bodo - for a 1970s bride these were as popular as fondue sets, a must have ;-) But then I was a sucker for kitchen gadgets.

They did actually work reasonably well, the idea being that you left the segments in the half peel, having lifted them from the peel with the curved blade which did work better than a flat blade. Less grapefruit splashes on your glasses. It's all a moot point now but we could all share our favourite unnecessary widget.